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Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 20 May 2020 14:42
by arkadiusz.makarenko
I am complacently green with Atari ST/STe hardware, but I would like to poke a little keyboard/mouse/joystick interface o Atari STs.
In particular I am looking for what exactly Atari expects to receive from keyboard "port". Do I need to reverse engineer it, or this has already been done?

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 20 May 2020 16:09
by stephen_usher
What is it you want to do? It's basically a serial interface.

If you want to connect a PS/2 keyboard then just get an Eiffel board.

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 20 May 2020 16:30
by terriblefire
arkadiusz.makarenko wrote: 20 May 2020 14:42 I am complacently green with Atari ST/STe hardware, but I would like to poke a little keyboard/mouse/joystick interface o Atari STs.
In particular I am looking for what exactly Atari expects to receive from keyboard "port". Do I need to reverse engineer it, or this has already been done?
Its a keyboard control interface a bit like the Amiga. I have an implementation in HDL somewhere...

https://github.com/terriblefire/atlys_a ... d6301emu.v

Dont know if thats a help is pretty basic

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 20 May 2020 17:38
by arkadiusz.makarenko
stephen_usher wrote: 20 May 2020 16:09 What is it you want to do? It's basically a serial interface.

If you want to connect a PS/2 keyboard then just get an Eiffel board.
I am thinking of porting my stm32 firmware for CD32 Riser to Atari ST. So in short USB HID devices, keyboard, mouse and HID compatible gamepads.

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 20 May 2020 17:47
by arkadiusz.makarenko
terriblefire wrote: 20 May 2020 16:30
arkadiusz.makarenko wrote: 20 May 2020 14:42 I am complacently green with Atari ST/STe hardware, but I would like to poke a little keyboard/mouse/joystick interface o Atari STs.
In particular I am looking for what exactly Atari expects to receive from keyboard "port". Do I need to reverse engineer it, or this has already been done?
Its a keyboard control interface a bit like the Amiga. I have an implementation in HDL somewhere...

https://github.com/terriblefire/atlys_a ... d6301emu.v

Dont know if thats a help is pretty basic
Thank you.

It is quite useful.
Keyboard codes are with comments. Only this is days of work.

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 20 May 2020 21:24
by Steve
I also used this on an arduino to convert an ST keyboard to USB:

https://github.com/devonshire/arduino-a ... d-keyboard

(not sure if this also helps)

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 23 May 2020 19:16
by arkadiusz.makarenko
Steve wrote: 20 May 2020 21:24 I also used this on an arduino to convert an ST keyboard to USB:

https://github.com/devonshire/arduino-a ... d-keyboard

(not sure if this also helps)
Thank you.
It is other direction, but few bits are useful like resetting keyboard etc.

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 23 May 2020 22:15
by arkadiusz.makarenko
I did spend some time poking what is happening there. Still don't fully understand what exactly can be sent to keyboard, and what response is expected. But at this point I know what baud rate is, how message looks like, and how keyboard, mouse in TOS, and joystick in games behaves.

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 23 May 2020 23:32
by ube

Re: Atari ST keyboard interface.

Posted: 24 May 2020 00:30
by arkadiusz.makarenko
ube wrote: 23 May 2020 23:32 Here you go. ikbd documentation.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/v4.14/i ... rikbd.html
Wow. Thank you.
Now there is no excuse ;) I have everything I need.